Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Dear Obama, Please Explain...

Is there someone that can tell me why we (and when I say we I mean President Obama and his administration) are engaging in talks with the Taliban as if they are a legitimate political power? I don't ask this snarkily or rhetorically, I ask because I really am flummoxed as to why this barbaric, misogynistic group is being given a seat at the table.

It was the TALIBAN, not al Qaeda that required women to wear burqas. It was the TALIBAN, not al Qaeda that condemned women to their homes and banned them from work or school. It was the TALIBAN, not al Qaeda that stoned women for sport and spectacle in the soccer fields of Afghanistan (their crime was being raped). It was the TALIBAN, not al Qaeda that set Afghanistan back to the Middle Ages. Our troops didn't liberate Afghanistan from al Qaeda, they were just camping out there like a bad house guest, our troops liberated them from the TALIBAN.

This is who you are sitting across the table from. This is whose hands you are placing the newly liberated people (and by people I mean women) in. This is who is getting a say? Why?!

That is not only insulting to each and every woman in Afghanistan that you promised a new life, but to each and every soldier, marine and airman that give life, limb and time to liberate...(especially the USMC FETs).

I wish, like you, I had gone to Harvard so I could wrap my head around this decision. Then maybe I could explain it to the next generation of Afghan girls that will be tethered to their bombed out huts and forbidden to go to school...

Sincerely,

-A woman that donated to RAWA and their struggle long before 9/11

P.S. If you want the Cliff Notes, you can always read The Kite Runner (that's actually about a boy, if the women's plights don't move you to action) or if time is scarce...see the movie.